dhampyresa

.It's that time of the year again! As readers of this journal may know, I mod several fanwork exchanges. The biggest of those, nightonficmountain , just opened nominations. There may be venting (most likely under-lock) because let me tell you, I have not missed the ao3 nomination approval interface and especially not its tendency to throw 404s at me when I've just validated a bunch of noms, aaaaaaaargh. /the glamorous life of a fandom mod

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I've seen a bunch of movies lately I haven't talked about on here -- and should -- Arrival (Hollywood scifi), Patients (French slice-of-life/biography) and Hidden Figures/Les Figures de l'ombre (US Historical) all of which were good.

I also saw Logan. Look. I have been for X-23 on the big screen for literally over a decade. I cannot overstate this: the very first time X-23 appeared, in a season 3 episode of X-Men:Evolution, I was sitting in front of my TV going "SHE IS THE GREATEST AND HER FEET CLAWS ARE THE COOLEST". Based on that, you'd think I would have had high expectations for this movie, but the thing is, I didn't, mostly because I didn't believe it was actually real. Like. There's an X-23 movie????? Is this the real life? But I have to say this was an awesome X-23 movie. Also SHE IS THE GREATEST AND HER FEET CLAWS ARE THE COOLEST.

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Sleeping Beauty and the Black Mercy (1507 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Finn/Rey (Star Wars)
Characters: Rey (Star Wars), Finn (Star Wars)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Black Mercy, Changing Tenses
Summary:

Finn dreams.

Rey investigated.

Finally wrote a thing for starwarsflashmeme ! The prompt was "Love" and I started thinking about real love's kiss and Sleeping Beauty!Finn, but couldn't figure out how to make sense of the vines and then boom! Of course! The Black Mercy!

READING

What did you finish reading

2015

Sandman Overture by Neil Gaiman (scenario) and J. H. Williams III (art): Well, that is certainly a published comic book. I wanted to like this a lot more than I ended up actually liking it.

I didn't care for meeting the Endless' parents -- yeah, that's a thing now apparently. /does standard comics thing of "only canon that matters is canon I like"

The plot was pretty eh, overall, I have to say. Tbh, I always considered what happened immediately before Sandman to be best left unexplained, because any explanation was (a) not needed and (b) unlikely to live up. As it turns out, I was bright on both counts. I did like the call forward with "Hope", though.

The art is very pretty. Unfortunately, sometimes it's very pretty at the expanse of legibility.

So all in all, it's okay and made disappointing by the fact that I expected better.


( Stuff I read and didn't talk about )


What are you reading now

Have made no progress on:
Contes et récits de l'histoire de Carthage by Jean Defrasne
Paris fais nous peur: 100 lieux du crime, de l'étrange et de l'irrationnel, by Claudine Hourcadette et Marc Lemonier
Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa
La Controverse de Valladolid by Jean-Claude Carrière

I can never remember/make up my mind: do I talk about US comics as they come out in floppies here or not?


What are you reading next

( To-read list )

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WATCHING

Star Wars Rebels: S03E05:
THE LAST BATTLE OF THE CLONE WARS! Clone Trooper Captain Rex vs Super Tactical Droid Kalani, winner takes all.

SO I SHIP REX/KALANI NOW SORRY NOT SORRY the "old enemies who find common ground and respect each other" dynamic just hit me where I live, okay?

I am having ALL OF THE CLONE FEELINGS, seriously. Cody*! "Clone Order 66"! "A good soldier follows orders", Rex, noooooooooooooo!

I am so glad Rex didn't die. SO GLAD.

It may have been my monitor, or the lighting or whatever -- and I fully expect to be Jossed by the next episode -- but Sabine's hair looked blue and white to me in this ep and I'm going to headcanon it was because she dyed it that way to honour Rex (and if it's back to pink-ish newt ep, I may have to write fic about the fallout of Agamar, re: Rex).

* I cannot believe when the preview came out I thought "Oh hey they got Cody's voice actor back just for this scene, that's sweet". Self, Cody and Rex have THE SAME VOICE ACTOR.


Lucifer: S02E03, S02E04 and S02E05: I can't quite remember what happened when, so you get three for the price of one. I continue to enjoy this ridiculous show greatly. Character interactions are gold and I love how many of the characters are women (Dr Linda, Maze, Chloe, Ella, Mum, Trixie). Dr Linda was a phone sex operator, omg and then there was a bar fight. Lucifer and Dan geeking out over action movies were cute. I grow impatient about getting to see CHLOE AND MAZE ROOMATES HIJINKS. I'm kind of sad Uriel is gone already, for some reason I tend to like Uriel best in ~classic angelology~ and his power here was pretty cool. I do like that we got canon confirmation that angels can be female (Azrael/the angel of death is "she"). Faced with the lack of non-binary/ungendered angels, I'll take 'angels can be male or female, it's whatever'. Also, Tom Ellis does Righteous Fury really well.


Legends of Tomorrow: S2E02: Are we done with the Nazis yet? Like. Seriously. I know Timetravel To WW2 is a well-used trope, but are we done yet? One episode is pretty the price I agree to pay when I get into a timetravel show, twice is trying my patience. At least Sara leading the crew is now oofficial.


Class: S01E01 and S01E02: Well, that was unexpectedly violent. I thought this would be a kid's show! (I did not follow the promos at all.) And yet I was really charmed by all the characters, from super-smart Tanya to Ms Quill the freedom-fighter-turned-reluctant-teacher/bodyguard to April whose bravery comes from kindness.


Luke Cage: S1E07: No progress.


Nirvana in Fire: E06: Have made no progress.


Miraculous Ladybug: S01E02: This show gives REALLY GOOD PARIS, I have to say. To the point that, despite the fact that I was watching the English dib (my search for the Korean dub remains fruitless), I ended up thinking "Genre la meuf va au Troca pour trouver un pigeon. Genre!" ("Like the girl goes to the Trocadéro to find a pigeon. As if!") in French, which usually never happens -- I certainly didn't think in French while watching Legends of Tomorrow, even though it was nominally set in Paris this week. So ML gives great Paris, including aaaaaaaaaaaall the subtle social clues. Yikes. I think I went to school with some of those people. Adrien's social clues are unambiguous, but Marinette's are more confused. Then again, I'm only two episodes in.

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Watch on YouTube

DID YOU KNOW X-23 WAS GOING TO BE IN A MOVIE

I went to see it on Wednesday, but I'm only posting about it now, because I was busy with things.

Non-spoilery review: I liked it and Mystique was great.

( Spoilery review )
TL;DR: It was great, but it needed more Rogue and Wanda.